A possible blue starter, an unusual form of lightning, shoots upward from a departing thundercloud last night around 11 p.m. Central Time. The storm was about 100 miles away at the time. It was the first time I’ve ever seen lightning go up! Details: ISO 3200, 20 second exposure at f/2.8 and 35mm lens. Bob KingIf you stayed up late or got up this morning before dawn you may have seen the northern lights. I drove to a beautiful, buggy field a little north of Duluth, Minn. and set up a camera hoping to capture sprites over a distant thunderstorm. In the 128 photos I took not one sported a sprite, an eerie form of cold, pink lightning that briefly appears over the tops of powerful thunderstorms. But I sure enjoyed all the flashes — there were hundreds! — and I did manage to capture a rare blue starter. Blue starters are a form of upper atmospheric lightning that shoots upward from a thundercloud into clear air.Last night’s aurora seen around midnight. Two arcs were visible; the lower one broke up into faint parallel rays. Along the top of the upper arc a pale pink band is visible. ...